Laban Dance Trip

Jess Elsley, Year 12 Dance Captain, writes:

On 16th November, Year 10, 12 and 13 students went to Trinity Laban in London. It was a day out looking at a professional dance school and what it involves. We travelled all the way to London and arrived at Laban.

First we had a little talk from a course director and got to see the lecture room at Laban within which, despite the fact it was primarily a dance school, they learnt that they had to still do theory work in lecture rooms. We then had a tour of the building and saw all the studios, and got an insight into some of their classes. This was interesting because as we walked around the school, we saw lots of the students sitting around and stretching and preparing for their class, which really highlighted the fact it was a dance school. Furthermore the whole building was shaped for dance; down every corridor were fountains and places to sit and stretch, even the grass outside the building was shaped into stairs so people could sit on in summer and people could perform in front of them. We also got to watch the resident dance company, Transitions. We saw how the company worked together and what a standard rehearsal would look like.

After lunch we took part in our first workshop: contemporary technique. The start of the workshop was doing slides and leg swings to get warm and practising using the space. Afterwards we had a creative choreography workshop, we started by doing a walking round exercise, which was an improvisation task. Both workshops were very energetic and enjoyable, using new styles which hadn’t been explored by the students previously. Overall the day was a great insight into the college life as a dance student and was enjoyed by all the students who went.

‘It was a great experience and I enjoyed watching Transitions and how they worked together, I would definitely go again.’ Abby Mortimer, Year 12 Dance Captain